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ABSTRACT
Recently global attention has been directed to the situations of girls and boys with disabilities, yet research tells us little about the experiences and perspectives of girls with disabilities except that their lives are filled with barriers, violence and stigma. I explore how girlhood studies can authentically include girls with disabilities. Drawing on feminist disability studies, I argue that we can use intersectional theory to identify and include the experiences of girls with disabilities, and explore diverse embodiments of girlhood. In doing this we can remove the trump card of disability and see disabled girls as an integral part of girlhood and girlhood studies.
KEYWORDS
diverse embodiments, friendship, intersectionality, play, sexuality, violence
Introduction
Girls with disabilities1 around the world face immense barriers to their full participation in ordinary life. Global attention has focused on children with disabilities in recent years and helped to identify many of these barriers including access to education, living with violence, stigma, and exclusion. The stories told about girls with disabilities are focused on hardship but tell us little about girlhood joys, friendships, and play. Why is this? We know little about how girls with disabilities see themselves in their communities, as members of families, and in their daily activities. We know little about the intersections of being a child, a girl, and disabled, let alone what it is like in the global South, being Indigenous, or coming from a racialized minority.
Even with little knowledge of these intersections, how we think about girls with disabilities often sets their disabilities2 first, and these experiences with disabilities are framed as problems or lacks. Experiences of disability for girls appear to trump and perhaps silence other experiences and the unique experiences of intersections. Why does disability as a problem or lack figure so prominently in the stories of girls with disabilities? Does disability substantively and negatively alter all experiences of girls? How do experiences of disability interact with global location, minority culture or being Indigenous for girls?
Feminist disability studies challenges us to explore the diverse identities and experiences of girls with disabilities, the theory and practice of intersectionality in the lives of disabled girls, and diverse embodiments that include and honour disabled girls. Using feminist disability studies and intersectionality,...